media update

  • Saw Kraftwerk last night: I hadn't seen them before. Definitely worth seeing, but, you know, it's Kraftwerk, so it's not really a concert. It was more like an interesting but slow-moving art film.

  • Kill Bill 2 was great. One of the things that I like about Tarantino's movies is that he's just such a giddy fanboy about his subject matter, and that excitement shows.

  • The Punisher is the worst movie I've seen in a long, long time. And I went into it with rock bottom expectations. It's been a decade since I've seen it, but I'm pretty sure that the Dolph Lundgren version was better. At least that one had ninjas.

    However, there was one brief scene (maybe 6 minutes long) of sheer unadulterated brilliance: it's best described as "The Punisher Versus Johnny Cash." That should have been the whole movie, right there, but no.

  • Tonight: The Pixies!

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32 Responses:

  1. lovingboth says:

    KW have changed over the years. Once upon an age ago, they hit pads with wires to play. Now... I'm not so sure any of it's not pre-sequenced.

    Karl Bartos is touring too, with a largely KW set. It amuses me that in order to say 'computer generated' graphics, both of them have had to use 1980s style 7x5 dot matrix letters, rather then the "I can't believe it's not hot metal" fonts we take for granted.

    • en_ki says:

      I can believe it. Fucking Word excuse for kerning.

    • grahams says:

      When you see The Pixies tell them that it's great and all they are getting back together and touring, but it'd be nice if they came home to Boston first... We miss them and they never call anymore.

    • jwz says:

      You're off by a decade, but -- of course it's 1970s-style dot matrix letters, it's 1970s-style dot matrix music!

      • jerronimo says:

        it's 1970's-style dot matrix music!

        That's the perfect way to describe it! hehehe :D

      • lovingboth says:

        You were obviously too rich in the early 80s. The rest of us had to save up to get an Epson that made a fuss about the way their gs, js, ps, qs and ys had 'real' descenders.

        "Descenders? We used to dream of descenders! We had a seven bit character set..."

        "With lower case?"

        "Aye."

        "You were lucky..."

  2. jerronimo says:

    I saw Kraftwerk this past Friday in Toronto. Excellent show. :D

    but yeah... it's not like a rock concert... but still awesome.

  3. king_mob says:

    You Pixies-seeing bastard.

    • insom says:

      I'm going to see them in August. Was thinking of tracking down some bootlegs before then (post-reunion), but would that ruin it?

      It's funny, when I got into the Pixies, which was still after they broke up, you had to go to 'specialist' vinyl stores to get their music. Last time I was in Ireland, HMV, Virgin and Tower had Pixies displays, with the CDs at around EUR8 each.

  4. kyronfive says:

    Saw Kraftwerk last night: I hadn't seen them before. Definitely worth seeing, but, you know, it's Kraftwerk, so it's not really a concert. It was more like an interesting but slow-moving art film.

    YES BUT THEY HAD ROBOTS! SO THERE.

    • jwz says:

      I like robots.

      Last night I commented that they should just mass produce those robots, and do a simultanious world tour (book the same night in every city they visit.) It's be almost the same show, plus, "Hey! You got your Kraftwerk in my Warhol!"

      • kyronfive says:

        ...only if the robots wear the blinky ties.

        • jwz says:

          I was disappointed that the blinky ties were not synchronized. That was so wrong.

          • hafnir says:

            The last tour was better, and more thumpin'. This year was decent but too tame, although it had good rockin' moments that harkened back to the last tour, like during Trans Europe Express.

            I enjoyed Blue Man Group more. :)

  5. down8 says:

    Lundgren is Punisher.

    That is all,
    -bZj

  6. gwenzilla says:

    When something is marketed as "Prepare to be Punished," "The Punishment Begins," and "It's Not Vengeance, It's Punishment", you have no one to blame but yourself.

    • solarbird says:

      Could be worse - could be Sailor Punisher! "おんしょっきょ!!" (I'll punish you!!)

  7. solarbird says:

    So where in the movie is tihs six minutes of brilliance? It's important for later, when I get to borrow the DVD from someone else just to see that one scene.

  8. bifrosty2k says:

    I liked the Dolph version, it was good, in that bad movie way.
    John Travolta always diminishes my moviegoing experience...

  9. stephendann says:

    So the movie which had the skull removed from the punisher's uniform because the studio said it was "too comic book-y" was better than the new version?

    Mystery Comic Book Theatre time it is then....

    $

  10. robcallahan says:

    ...the Russian was better. Least bastardized character of the whole film.

  11. cygnus says:

    I can't decide which part I liked better in Kill Bill vol. 2: the beard fixation or the Superman theory.

    The latter was brilliance, though.

  12. violentbloom says:

    did you like the first kill bill?
    Though I liked it, it had a lot of unfufilled potential. Therefore somewhat unsatisfying. So haven't seen the second one as yet because of that. But then again most movies suck so with that as a scale, sure the first one was great. But hey do you need to make a mediocre movie just because everyone else does? (and yes that's somewhat hypocritical given I made a less than great movie last summer.)

    • jwz says:

      Yeah, I thought KB1 was brilliant -- I liked it as much as Pulp Fiction.

    • 33mhz says:

      That unfulfilled potential is pretty much all in KB2. In some senses, KB1 is the longest trailer in movie history: you're shown a shower of gore and vengeance with some hints at what motivated it. In the second one, you see exactly how things were put into motion.

      • fantasygoat says:

        I really think it would have been better as a single film. I really liked the first and almost fell asleep in the second, so I feel the whole would be greater than the sum of the parts. All of that could have been edited down and fit into the first.

        • asan102 says:

          I think you have a medical problem if you almost fell asleep in either kill bill.

          Each one separately is still better than any movie I've seen in quite a long time, but they would definitely be better as a whole, if only we had enough time to devote to a 5 hour long movie.

  13. codetoad says:

    Were you in Davis to see them?